Nope, won't be doing that...

There's a recipe for perfect lamb koftas...

...and I get this quite frequently. At line two it says:

“Grate the onions and squeeze out as much liquid as possible...”

Instantly the “yeah, gonna do that, 'aint I” blinds roll down over my eyes. The juices in the onions give the flavour. Either use dried onions, or less onion, but squeezing out part of what's in there to start with seems absurd.

There's some other lines that bring down those blinds, including:

“[of tomatoes] peel and deseed” – nope

“[rice, before cooking] rinse” – nope, and why?

“[rice, after cooking] rinse” – shan’t be doing that either

“deseed the chillies” – right, I've real problems with this, if three chillies with seeds is too hot, then use one and a half, and use the seeds. You bought them. They're part of the things. Save the faff. Spare the landfill.

“[of fish] skin” – what on earth for? Best bit.

Same with taking the skin off cucumbers, courgettes, the rind off cheese, the crust off bread. Madness and extra unnecessary messing about.

Loose tea

Save the planet. Ditch the teabags. Go back to free range leaves. Apparently bags are thoroughly bad for the environment. You also get a much better cup of tea with leaves.

Jasmine tea...

...is my favourite. The best thing is getting two, even three pots from the same leaves. I thought it was just some old-age-related tight-fistedness, but no. Each re-use has a character of its own (so the tea-tasters say), with the second often being better than the first.

First pot: I'm getting jasmine, with smoky depth, citrus high notes and a cheeky little burst of ginger.

Second pot: I'm getting jasmine, with a hint of apple, a smidgeon of cassia bark, and some gentle lime.

Third pot: I'm getting jasmine, with strong blackcurrant, an unexpected Bovril undertow, and some definite green cardamom.

See? What to you get with tea bags? Some over-muscled PG, underpinned with the hints of tips and semi-skimmed.